Yes, *Glee'*s Kevin McHale Will Be White-Boy Rapping This Season

Kevin McHale plays Artie—the kid in the wheelchair—on the hit TV show Glee, which begins its second season tonight. Those of you who followed my weekly Glee-caps last season may recall my “affectionate” descriptions of Artie after his star turn in the episode “Wheels” (and those of you who don’t give a whit about my tireless efforts here at VF.com may have spotted him in the print magazine with his male Glee cohorts pretending to be one of five contemporary, and very soggy, sartorial clones of Gene Kelly in his Singing in the Rain phase.) I find Artie to be one of the most compelling and sympathetic characters on the show—plus, I naturally side with the underdog—so while everyone else in the media echo chamber was attending to his bipedally-abled co-stars, I snuck in and chose him as my first-ever cast interviewee.

Brett Berk: Hey Kevin. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. I don’t usually do celebrity interviews, so pardon me in advance if I totally suck at this. Also, I’m in the eleventh floor of a hotel room in Chicago right now, looking over the river, and there’s a man dangling from a rope outside my window with a brush and a squeegee, so if you hear any banging or screaming, that what that’s about.

Kevin McHale: That’s scary! We were just in Chicago. We did Oprah last weekend, which was kind of a big deal. We came in over the weekend to tape the segment, and she was like, “Thanks for coming in on a Saturday,” and we were all like, “Um, you’re Oprah. We’d do anything for you.”That sounds like a thrill. You must be in a Gleeked-out fever at this point with all the lead-up to the new season finally coming to a head tonight.

It is kind of like Glee on steroids. We’re finishing up filming the end of the first season now. And we’ve been in Glee fever since this winter when we started finishing up the back nine [the nine new episodes to air this spring]. So it’s kind of like when we finished filming the original 13 episodes and we were just waiting for them to air to see what people would think of them. We’re on a break, but we’re anxious and excited.

In preparation for this call, I did some research on you—which means I thumbed through my old copies of Tiger Beat and read your Wikipedia entry. Besides being from Plano, Texas, the most intriguing thing I found was that you were once in a boy band. That’s sort of like a fantasy of mine. Tell me about how that came to be.

I was actually in it [the band NLT: Not Like Them] when I first started coming out to L.A. for auditions. I sang before I acted, but I always wanted to do them simultaneously. I’d been in the group since I was 14. We went on tour with the Pussycat Dolls, we did a couple songs with Timbaland. Then one of the guys quit the group. We were, like, 18, and normal kids were going to college, and we were running out of money, and we didn’t know what to do, and we were leaving our manager, and it kind of naturally ended. Then, about a month later, I auditioned for Glee, and two days later I had a call back and they wanted me to do a test.

Well, you must have done something right, since you got the part. Now, you’re one of my favorite characters on the show, and I happen to think you’re adorable, but I feel like the plot lines always get hogged by Finn (Corey Monteith), Rachel (Lea Michele), and Mr. Shuester (Matthew Morrison). What is going to be done about this? Are they finally going to let you shine this season?

These back nine, there’s so much going on in every episode, that all of us get more than we did in the first 13. I get some more time with Tina [a crush object from Season 1]. That comes back again. And I sing more. And I do even have a few solos. I get to do a rap song in the very near future, in, like, Episode 4 of the new season. I can’t tell you any details, except to say that it’s a very famous rap song. Whether or not it’s a good song is personal preference. I haven’t seen it yet. I’m worried that it’s going to be a little embarrassing, in terms of how crazy it was when we were filming it.

Are you going to be singing anything from your boy band this season?

Well
we’re going to be doing songs that are successful and songs that everyone knows, so it wouldn’t be possible to do anything from the boy band.

Ha! Well, I look forward to your rap, especially if it’s embarrassing. [I love to watch other people humiliate themselves.] I’m actually waiting to hear about getting some V.I.P. tickets to the live Glee performance at Radio City Music Hall this spring, when you guys are on your big nationwide tour. And I’m wondering, are they going to make you appear in a wheelchair?

We haven’t started rehearsals yet, so I don’t exactly know. But from my understanding, the performances will be in character, so I’ll most likely be in the chair. If it’s in character, it’s in character, so I should be in a wheelchair, right? I’m fine with that. People aren’t paying to see the Kevin McHale show, they’re paying to see the cast of Glee. Still, maybe I’ll just hop up in the middle of one of the songs. I mean, what’s going to happen? Is someone going to run up and tackle me and throw me back in the chair?

Oh, do it! I’d like to see that.

Well maybe I’ll do it for the last night at Radio City Music Hall. It’s the last night of the tour.

I’ll be there that night. You should definitely do that. Speaking of live performances, I read that the cast was recently at the White House for Easter. I have three questions about that. First, did you get to meet the president and his family?

Yes, we got to meet the president, who was extremely nice. We even got to play with the dog. And Amber, who plays Mercedes on the show, got to sing the national anthem from the balcony of the White House with the family right next to her. You could see Barack and Michelle smiling, like, This girl can sing. And all the girls and most of the guys were crying, because she was singing, like, the most patriotic song in the most patriotic place ever, and she was just amazing. J.K. Rowling was there as well, which was a highlight for me. Also, Reese Witherspoon. And Apolo Ohno. And the cast of Yo Gabba Gabba.

Who the hell put together that guest list? How are those people connected?

I have no idea.

That wasn’t my second White House question, by the way. My second question is, Did you have to appear in the wheelchair?

I did appear in the wheelchair. When we performed the big numbers—we did “Somebody to Love” and “Don’t Stop Believing”—I was in the chair. It was a bit odd, to be, like, I’m at the White House, meeting the President, and I’m performing in a wheelchair. But it was amazing. A highlight of my life.

Third White House question: Did you meet Barack’s girls, Sasha and Malia, and are they really as spoiled as everyone says they are?

No. You’re kidding, right? They seemed extremely nice. I was actually kind of in awe of the whole thing. I couldn’t stop thinking, like, this is their house. They seemed super humble.

So you’re not going to spill about the Obama girls. Fair enough. But any dirt you can give me on any of the other cast members? Like, secret nicknames, pet peeves, embarrassing rituals they go through before a take? I ask because I have some other interviews with your colleagues scheduled and I want to be able to bring these things up on the sly.

The only thing that I can give as a pet peeve is one of Corey’s. All the girls do this really annoying sound with their tongues just for fun, to be silly, going, Alalalalalalalalalalalalala, really loud. They just do it as a joke. But all the sudden, recently, Corey—who is the most easy going guy in the world, and never gets irritated by anything—has suddenly gotten bothered by it. He hates it. It drives him crazy.

If I talk to him, maybe I can try to do that. Although I might have to get some lessons from one of the girls. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I’ll let you know if I make it to the Radio City concert.